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Randolph board seeks more local funding

ASHEBORO — The Randolph County Board of Education is sending the county a preliminary budget seeking a more than $6.2 million increase in the local appropriation for Randolph County Schools.

Most of the increase sought, $5.7 million, is earmarked for capital outlay items: Safety issues identified since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings last December, especially exterior doors at the older schools, $1.5 million; updates at the four original high schools, $2 million; and Braxton Craven School improvements to provide a second Archdale-Trinity area middle school, $2.2 million.

The remaining $507,000, for current expense, is to cover $350,000 in continuation costs such as anticipated increases in utilities, fuel and other operational items, and $157,000 to retain three social workers previously paid for through the federal Connect Initiative Grant which ends June 30.

Each of the original high schools — Eastern Randolph, Randleman, Southwestern Randolph and Trinity — would receive $500,000 to be spent on safety-related improvements and put toward other items such as windows, asbestos abatement, HVAC, roofs, labs, bleachers and field lighting.

The money for Braxton Craven would be to make improvements to accommodate a switch from the present sixth-grade school to just grades 7-8, providing a second middle school for the Archdale-Trinity attendance area. All sixth-graders in the area would go to Archdale-Trinity Middle School which would also house grades 7-8 headed to Wheatmore High School. Braxton Craven would be the middle school feeder for Trinity High School. Currently, all Archdale-Trinity middle schoolers attend Braxton Craven for sixth grade and ATMS for grades 7-8 and then head to either Trinity or Wheatmore high schools, giving the area one middle school.

A preliminary 2013-14 school budget was unanimously approved by the school board during its regular meeting Monday night. During the budget discussion, board member Gary Cook said he was getting several inquiries about the Braxton-Craven project.

It was decided that a public forum should be held, probably at THS, in the near future to explain the Braxton Craven renovations to the community.

In presenting the preliminary local budget, Todd Lowe, school finance officer, called it “a working document” because the school system doesn’t have any idea what type of state allotment it will receive. Only the budget proposed by N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory has been made public thus far; Lowe said that “overall it’s not good for K-12.”

He reviewed the preliminary budget which seeks $17,664,901 in the county appropriations for current expense, $507,000 more than this fiscal year; $7,913,659 in local funding for capital outlay, $5.7 million more than this year.

The board also approved the Archdale-Trinity Tax District budget which provides for the supplemental school tax to remain at 9 cents per $100 property valuation. The tax district funds are expected to provide an additional $2,066,500 for Archdale-Trinity schools in the upcoming fiscal year to pay for teacher and coaching supplements and individual school allotments based on $190 per student.

The preliminary budget now goes to Randolph County officials for consideration in the 2013-14 fiscal year budget. The new fiscal year budget is scheduled to be presented to county commissioners on May 28 after which representatives of county schools, as well as Asheboro City Schools and Randolph Community College, will formally present their budgets.

No one spoke during the school board’s public hearing Monday night on the preliminary budget.

There were several recognitions at the meeting:

* Hannah Meyer of Trinity Elementary and Ragan Quate of Trindale Elementary were chosen to lead the Pledge of Allegiance.

* The student presentation was a poem shared by Lauren Harris and AnnaLee Roach, eighth-graders at Northeastern Randolph Middle.

* Luke Brown, assistant principal at Trinity High, was announced as Randolph County Schools Assistant Principal of the Year.

* Kyle Spencer, also of Trinity High, was recognized for his wrestling coach accomplishments, including being chosen State 2-A Wrestling Coach of the Year by a top wrestling publication.

* Randleman Middle was honored for being named a School to Watch by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform and Kaye Williams, eighth-grade language arts teacher at RMS, was be honored for being selected the Central Region’s Teacher to Watch.

The school board holds its quarterly work session Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the Central Office board room. The Superintendent’s Student Advisory Coalition will make an “Our Voices” presentation.